This rectangular site, measuring approximately 17.7 metres northwest to southeast and 23.2 metres northeast to southwest, appears today as a light patch of grass surrounded by a darker band of vegetation about 1.8 metres wide; likely the remnants of an old fosse or defensive ditch. Just 55 metres to the southeast lies a ringfort, suggesting this area has been significant to local inhabitants for generations.

The site’s history becomes particularly intriguing when examining old maps. The 1837 Ordnance Survey six-inch map shows it as a rectangular tree plantation, which hints that this earthwork might have been created as a landscape feature sometime after 1700, possibly as part of a formal garden or estate design. Interestingly, despite its proximity to the ancient ringfort, this particular earthwork was never marked as an antiquity on any edition of the OS maps, suggesting surveyors of the time didn’t consider it of ancient origin.

Modern technology has helped reveal what time has hidden. Aerial photography from November 2011 clearly shows the cropmark of this levelled earthwork, demonstrating how vegetation patterns can reveal archaeological features invisible at ground level. Whether this was a moated site associated with medieval settlement, a post-medieval landscape feature, or something else entirely remains part of its mystery. What’s certain is that this unassuming patch of grassland represents layers of human activity and landscape modification stretching back through the centuries.